Two Judicature articles have received attention in China after being translated and reprinted in the Chinese law journal Evidence Science (证据科学) by Zhuhao Wang, associate professor of law at the Institute of Evidence Law and Forensic Science at the China University of Political Science and Law.
Wang’s translations of “How Trial Judges Should Think About Forensic Science” by Jonathan J. Koehler and “After Uniqueness: The Evolution of Forensic-Science Opinions” by William C. Thompson, Joëlle Vuille, Franco Taroni, and Alex Biedermann have been read and shared thousands of times, both in print and online, by the journal’s subscribers. “How Trial Judges Should Think About Forensic Science” and “After Uniqueness: The Evolution of Forensic-Science Opinions” were originally published in the Spring 2018 edition of Judicature.
Each issue of Evidence Science is printed and mailed to 2,000 subscribers, and a greater number can access the articles online through WeChat and CNKI, China’s largest online academic library. According to Wang, After Uniqueness: The Evolution of Forensic-Science Opinions, translated in 2018, has been read more than 5,000 times, shared hundreds of times, and has already been cited by multiple scholarly publications in China. How Trial Judges Should Think About Forensic Science, translated in September of this year, has already been read more than 3,000 times.
Evidence Science is a journal focused on evidence law and forensic science. Most of the articles are in Mandarin, but it occasionally publishes articles in other languages, usually accompanied by word-to-word Chinese translations. Wang said he hopes his translations will encourage more Chinese research and scholarship on these issues.
Wang’s own research focuses on evidence law and its intersections with forensic science, as well as applications of electronic technologies in judicial proceedings. In addition to these Judicature articles, he has translated more than a dozen law journal articles and books into Chinese and subsequently published them in China. He is currently an SJD candidate at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law.
“By translating these two articles into Chinese, my goal is to spread up-to-date research and knowledge to Chinese judges, rulemakers, scholars, lawyers, forensic scientists, and government regulators,” said Wang, who studied law in China and in the United States before joining the Institute of Evidence Law and Forensic Science of China University of Political Science and Law in 2012. “Also, I hope to attract Chinese jurists’ attentions and to generate discussions in China on these forensic problems.”